Effect of Hydrogen Concentration on

Vented Explosions

C. Regis Bauwens, Jenny Chao, Sergey B. Dorofeev

6th ICHSSept. 13th, 2011

Outline• Background• Explosion Phenomena• Experiments• Correlation• Conclusion/Summary• Questions

Background• Vented Explosions

Background• Motivation

– Necessary to properly size vents• Aim to minimize vent size while providing

adequate protection

– Existing empirical standards based on limited data• Predictions off by more than order of

magnitude• Greatly under predicts hydrogen-air

mixtures

Background• Vented Explosion Research Program

– Generate a set of experimental data on vented explosions varying:• mixture composition• ignition location• vent size• presence of obstacles • size of enclosure• vent deployment pressure/panel mass

– Develop engineering tools/CFD models

– Develop/improve vent size correlations

Background• Experimental Setup

• Volume: 64 m3

• Vent size: 5.4 m2

• 12 – 19 % vol. hydrogen-air

Background• Experimental Setup

– Instrumentation layout:

Background• Center ignition 19% hydrogen-air

Pext

Pvib

Explosion Phenomena• External Explosion

Background• Rayleigh-Taylor Instability

Explosion Phenomena• Flame-acoustic interactions

Explosion Phenomena• Lewis Number Effect

– LE < 1 enhances hydrodynamic flame instabilities

– LE decreases as hydrogen concentration decreases

– Increases effective burning velocity of flame

Experiments• Flame speed

Experiments• Flame speed

Normalized by σSL Normalized by σSLΞLE

19.0 LELE

Experiments• Internal Pressure

80 Hz Low Pass Filtered 80 Hz High Pass Filtered

Outline• Background• Explosion Phenomena• Experiments• Correlation• Conclusion/Summary• Questions

Correlation• Model Description

– Previous studies found each pressure peak independent of one another

– Pressure peaks occur when volume production matches volumetric flow rate through vent

• Rate of volume production depends on flame area, flame speed

• Rate of venting function of pressure across vent, vent size and density of vented gas

Correlation• Model Description

12

vcd

fu1

0

e

0

)1(211

Aa

ASpp

pp

burning velocity

maximum flame area

external explosion pressure

production of combustion products = loss of volume due to venting

Correlation• External Explosion Peak, Pext

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

Mod

eled

Pex

t(b

ar)

Measured Pext (bar)

Center IgnitionBack Ignition

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

Mod

eled

Pex

t(b

ar)

Measured Pext (bar)

Center IgnitionBack Ignition

19.0 LELE2LE

Correlation• Flame-Acoustic Peak, Pvib

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3

Mod

eled

Pvi

b(b

ar)

Measured Pvib (bar)

Center IgnitionBack IgnitionFront Ignition

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3

Mod

eled

Pvi

b(b

ar)

Measured Pvib (bar)

Center IgnitionBack IgnitionFront Ignition

19.0 LELE2LE

Discussion• Model accurately reproduces trends

for peak pressures

• Valid over wide range of initial conditions and ignition locations

• Only two empirical constants in model

Conclusion/Summary• Experiments

– Experiments performed for 12-19% vol. hydrogen-air mixtures

– Throughout range of concentrations same peaks present

– High frequency flame-acoustic interactions increase in amplitude with lower concentration

– Flame-acoustic interactions did not result in more damaging over-pressures

Conclusion/Summary• Correlation

– Previously developed model performs well across range of concentrations

– Adding LE correction slightly improves performance of model

– LE correction may have larger contribution at higher concentrations

Questions?